Draw the positions of the moon in its orbit and its corresponding phases. Why do we never see the backside of the moon?
Answers
After the Sun, the Moon is the brightest and most obvious object in the sky. Unlike the Sun, it does not shine under its own power, but merely glows with reflected sunlight. If you were to follow its progress in the sky for a month, you would observe a cycle of phases (different appearances), with the Moon starting dark and getting more and more illuminated by sunlight over the course of about two weeks. After the Moon’s disk becomes fully bright, it begins to fade, returning to dark about two weeks later.
These changes fascinated and mystified many early cultures, which came up with marvelous stories and legends to explain the cycle of the Moon. Even in the modern world, many people don’t understand what causes the phases, thinking that they are somehow related to the shadow of Earth. Let us see how the phases can be explained by the motion of the Moon relative to the bright light source in the solar system, the Sun.
Lunar Phases
Although we know that the Sun moves 1/12 of its path around the sky each month, for purposes of explaining the phases, we can assume that the Sun’s light comes from roughly the same direction during the course of a four-week lunar cycle. The Moon, on the other hand, moves completely around Earth in that time. As we watch the Moon from our vantage point on Earth, how much of its face we see illuminated by sunlight depends on the angle the Sun makes with the Moon.
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